Our Socialist School Teachers

I am beginning to feel that there is no hope for many of our school teachers. They’ve become so infused with leftism that any semblance of Americanism is beyond their grasp. Even history is viewed from within a socialist prism as a recent editorial from a teacher from Pennsylvania proves.

In his editorial, teacher Robert J. Fisher of Upper Saucon Township sought to debunk what he called the “extreme right-wing elements” of today’s America. He did this by claiming that nearly every conflict in our history is some sort of example of Marxist class warfare.

For teacher Fisher, all of American history is one giant example of Marxist principles proven right. It doesn’t matter that the ideas of class as Marx described them really didn’t exist during all of American history, of course.

Fisher claims that “primitive Native Americans” and “subsistent frontiersmen from the Piedmont” were all engaged in class warfare with the “wealthier urban merchants and plantation owners.”

He goes on to claim that the Regulators in 1771 North Carolina, Shay’s rebellion (1787), and the earlier Bacon’s rebellion (1675) were all “class warfare.”

Then he says that the “powerful federal government” that Washington and his compatriots created was an attempt to “deal more effectively with such class-based rebellions.” His proof? The 1791 Whiskey Rebellion.

Fisher bounced to the Jacksonian era, saying that the President Andrew Jackson’s goal was “reform” America to allow “the common man” to become vested in the system then touted the Civil War as the biggest “class struggle” of them all.

And who else was a hero? Of course it was the rise of the labor union coupled with Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal” policies. These, he claims “helped create a vibrant middle class.”

All of this is skewed nonsense. The history of the United States cannot be so simplistically distilled as one of mere class warfare and it’s sad that this person who has been allowed to influence the minds of our children is so blinded by his Marxist theology that this is all he can see.

In fact, in nearly every case Fisher cites the Americans involved were not trying to tear down another class in order to “equalize” society. They did not consider themselves class warriors but people that aimed to advance to a better life themselves.

This is 100 percent opposite of Fisher’s Marxist theology. Marxism wants to tear down society and “the evil rich” and replace it all with an authoritarian, top-down, oppressive central government that allows no one to better themselves. This is as far from American history as can be.
And that whole business that the labor movement created some sort of heaven on earth? Hardly. In fact, the labor unions held America back with the costs and limits on innovation they imposed. It wasn’t unions that brought America that middle class, it was far more the fact that the USA was the one world power untouched physically by the ravages of WWII leaving us in the perfect position to rebuild the world and reap the untold benefits from that lucky stroke. That combined with our American capitalist system, our Yankee work ethic, and our American culture — the very one Fisher disparages as a series of class wars — that allowed us to take advantage of that post world war atmosphere.

But Fisher has inculcated his appreciation of Marxism from his years of indoctrination in our system of higher learning and unfortunately he’s teaching this garbage to our children.

You can lead a horse to water but you ca’t make him drink. You cal lead a leftist to the red kool-aid and he’ll swim in it!

Vagabond661

Detroit comes to mind when reading this.

Guest

He undercuts his academic credentials in his sentence on the Whiskey Rebellion:

In 1791, President George Washington ordered that a national army invade western Pennsylvania to force impoverished farmers there to pay a controversial excise tax on whiskey, their principle currency.

A teacher should be able to distinguish “principle” from “principal.”

Commander_Chico

Fisher has an interesting perspective. The Civil War does have an element of “class struggle” to it.

However I object to his mistaken use of “principle” when he meant principal.

GarandFan

Wonder what Fisher’s take is on the failure of the soviet system. Not enough time? Not enough money?

herddog505

This is really nothing new. An economic / class interpretation of the history of the United States goes back at least a century to Beard’s An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States.

As with most things, it’s not as simple as one side or the other might claim. Were the Founding Fathers (for example) ardent patriots, interested in securing the blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity? Yes, unquestionably. Were they also products of their time, accustomed to a certain class structure and also interested in upholding an economic framework that they believed to be best for the country (and, honestly, themselves and their class)? Yes.

What I object to is the attempt to portray the history of our country as one of nothing but greed and oppression, of the rich trying (and succeeding) to exploit everybody else and setting up the system solely to that end. Such an interpretation not only is an insult to the Americans who created our country, but to all of us who’ve come since: are we REALLY a pack of suckers being manipulated by a handfull of rich oligarchs? I think not.

20thCenturyVole

The Whiskey Rebels were chanting some nonsense about “Taxation without representation”…